VIP Vatican In a Day Semi-Private Tour: Experience Art and History As Never Before

Whoever explores the Sistine Chapel through the eyes of Michelangelo, whoever reads his thoughts and sentiments in these awe-inspiring frescoes, encounters a genius. Learn who Michelangelo was, discover how he lived and what he thought. Discover how he came to master the technique of fresco on the job, and how his working practices and designs changed according to his inspiration even as he painted the chapel.

In the company of our expert art-historian guide learn all about the greatest artistic undertakings of the Italian Renaissance: together we’ll relive the dramatic environment of Rome’s Papal court, and unravel the context in which Michelangelo created his masterpieces. Appreciate the figures of Jonah, Adam, Eve, Noah and thousands of others on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and in the Last Judgement, and discover the incredible stories they tell us. On our tour of the Sistine chapel understand how these frescoes redefined not only art, but even the way in which we look at the world around us.

This was a period of amazing innovation, when the great characters of the Renaissance completely revolutionised our understanding of the world. The printing press, the geographic maps that Columbus used to reach the Americas, the dawning of modern science, a new conception of architecture, art and the sense of beauty (a concept frequently demonized in the Middle Ages) – all these were their innovations. The frescoes of the Raphael rooms perfectly depict the world of the contemporary courts that governed the course of this new world, where the great geniuses of the age lived and worked.

The cultured conversations fueled by the wine of sumptuous banquets, statues brought to light by a frenzied passion for excavations, new fashions, and above all new ways of thinking and living – these are all marvellously recreated by Raphael with the perfect touch of his graceful brush. On this Vatican group tour we will have the opportunity to experience this amazing world in the flesh. There’s an entire world to discover here, a world of which we ourselves are the children.

Some of the the most important works that we will discover on our group tour of the Vatican, such as timeless Greek masterpieces like the Laocoon, the Belvedere Torso and the Apollo Belvedere, were excavated at the time of Michelangelo and Raphael; the great Renaissance artists studied and admired them in the same architectural context in which they are preserved today, and the artworks that they created are the fruit of their careful study. Following in their footsteps, you’ll pass through the Pinecone courtyard, the Belvedere courtyard and the tapestry galleries in the company of a guide capable of recreating the climate of the epoch – allowing you to appreciate the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel in their historical context.

Some of the finest paintings of the Vatican Museums are collected in the Pinacoteca (Picture Gallery), still ignored by most tours. On our extended Vatican Tour you will explore this tranquil part of the Museums, appreciating the explosive force of Leonardo’s Saint Jerome and the spectacular realism of Caravaggio’s Deposition, an artist of absolute and ungovernable genius. We will also encounter Raphael’s Transfiguration, a work that would be his last when, struck down by a terrible fever, he died at the height of his fame at the tender age of 37.